Inquiry/Discovery-Based Instruction to Improve Critical Thinking Skills and Mastery of Physics
Concepts
C. Huda, S.D. Aji, M.N. Hudha, F. Gamat, & Wartono
Universitas Kanjuruhan Malang, Malang, Indonesia
Abstract—Inquiry/discovery-based instruction is a teaching
model that enables students actively and independently discover
and acquire their knowledge. The role of the teacher is only as a
facilitator that guides them to discover and solve the problems
they encounter. Using one group pretest and postest design, the
present study was aimed to find out the effectiveness of
inquiry/discovery-based teaching to improve high school stu-
dents’ critical thinking skills and mastery of physics concepts. An
effect size was used to measure the effectiveness of the in-
quiry/discovery-based instruction. Moreover, the improvement of
critical thinking skills and mastery of physics concepts was seen
from an N-Gain analysis using a two-way MANOVA statistical
test. The result of the study showed that inquiry/discovery-based
instruction was effective in improving critical thinking skills and
students’ mastery of physics concepts during the discovery
process in conducting an experiment.
Keywords— Instruction, Thinking Skills; Mastery of Physics
Concepts
I. INTRODUCTION
Critical thinking skills play an important role in improving
the mastery of physics concepts. Students will understand
physics concepts when the learning process is meaningful [4].
A meaningful learning can develop students’ critical thinking
skills [7].
Inquiry/discovery-based instruction is one of the ways to
improve critical thinking skills [5,9]. It is a teaching and learn-
ing process that encourages students to search for new infor-
mation and investigate it systematically, critically, logically,
and analytically so that they can confidently formulate their
own discovery [2].
Using this teaching model, it is expected that [10,8], 1)
students will understand the basic concepts better, 2) students
are encouraged to think and work on their own initiative [3],
3) students are encouraged to think inclusively and formulate
their own hypotheses. Inquiry-based instruction that develops
critical thinking can improve students’ achievement in learning
science (Qing, Jing, & Yan, 2010) and concept mastery (Sri-
arunrasmee et al., 2015) [6,8].
II. METHOD
The present research used one group pretest and posttest
design. The data were analyzed using a MANOVA statistical
test. The samples were 35 out of 107 tenth-grade students in
the 2015/2016 school year.
The data of critical thinking skills were collected through a
pretest and posttest whose questions were of the open-ended
essay. The critical thinking skills were measured using the in-
strument outlined in Table 1. The mastery of physics concepts
was measured using a multiple choice test.
TABLE I. STUDENT’S CRITICAL THINKING INDICATORS
Critical
Thinking Indicators
Critical Thinking
Descriptors
1. Problem formulation Formulating questions that lead to
the investigation of the answer
2. Conveying arguments
Relevant arguments
Demonstrating the similarities and
differences
Complete argument
3. Deduction Logical Deduction
Interpreting accurately
4. Induction Analyzing the data
Making generalizations
5. Doing evaluations Drawing conclusions
Evaluating based on facts
6. Making decisions and tak-
ing actions
Giving alternatives
Determining a way out
Choosing the probability
(Ennis. R.H.. 1985)
Content and construct validity test was carried out prior to
piloting the test items. Afterwards, the test item validity and
reliability test were conducted. The improvement of critical
thinking skills and physics concept mastery was seen from the
gain score. And Becker’s effect size was used to find out the
effectiveness of the implementation inquiry/ discovery-based
instruction to improve critical thinking skills and physics con-
cept mastery.
1st International Conference on Education Innovation (ICEI 2017)
Copyright © 2018, the Authors. Published by Atlantis Press. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/).
Advances in Social Science, Education and Humanities Research, volume 173
66
viationstandartde
meanpremeanpostES
The effect size coefficient criteria are outlined as follows:
TABLE II. EFFECT SIZE CRITERIA
Interval Coefficient Criteria
ES ≤ 0.2 ES-Low
0.2 < ES ≤ 0.8 ES-Moderate
ES> 0.30 ES-Low
III. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
The pretest and posttest data revealed that students’ critical
thinking about hydrostatic pressure improved. The gain score
was 0.602. In other words, the improvement of students' criti-
cal thinking skills could be categorized as g-moderate.
Fig 1. Pretest and posttest data of critical thinking skills
Based on Figure 1, the inquiry/discovery-based instruction
improved the critical thinking skills of the tenth graders at
Nasional Malang Senior High School. The improvement was
formulated as follows:
713,1meanpremeanpost
viationstandartde
ES
The effect size score was high. Thus, it can be concluded
that the inquiry/discovery-based instruction was effective in
improving the critical thinking skills.
Fig 2. Pretest and posttest data of student concept mastery
Based on Figure 2, the inquiry/discovery-based instruction
improved the concept mastery of the tenth graders at Nasional
Malang Senior High School. The effectiveness of he in-
quiry/discovery-based instruction is formulated as follows:
624,1
viationstandartde
meanpremeanpostES
The effect size score was high. Thus, it can be concluded
that the inquiry/discovery-based instruction was effective in
improving student concept mastery.
The inquiry/discovery-based instruction significantly
improved critical thinking skills when students solved
problems in an experiment [3]. The students were indirectly
trained to find, find and solve problems using their
independent thinking. The inquiry/discovery-based instruction
is different from other teaching models that emphasize
knowledge enrichment, resulting in learning is a process of
imitation.
Inquiry/discovery-based instruction trains students to
develop facts, construct concepts and draw general
conclusions about phenomena they encounter through
observation, investigation, experiments, comparing each
other’s discovery, posing questions and seeking for the
answers to his own questions. Therefore, this model is
effective to improve concept mastery.
IV. CONCLUSION
The result of the study shows that inquiry/discovery-based
instruction improved students’ critical thinking skills and mas-
tery of physics concepts during the discovery process in con-
ducting an experiment.
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